On November 15, 1969, Commander
Graf, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, was accompanying U.S.
Army Captain Robert White on a flight south of Saigon. Their aircraft
was hit by hostile small arms fire and crashed along the coast
in Vinh Binh Province. Both crewmen parachuted to safety, were
captured by local guerilla forces, and held in a provincial level
prison. Both crewmen were initially reported as missing and then
reclassified as POWs.

Commander Graf escaped from the
prison circa February 1971 and was never seen again by Captain
White. Captain White survived in the Vinh Binh prison. In 1972,
a captured People's Army of Vietnam document from Military Region
3 in the southern Vietnam delta identified him as the only American
POW in captivity in the delta who had not been evacuated to the
Region 3 Headquarters controlled prison in the U-Minh mangrove
swamp in Kien Giang Province.

Captain White's name did not appear
on the Provisional Revolutionary Government's list of Americans
to be repatriated during Operation Homecoming. Then, at the end
of March 1973, People's Army of Vietnam General Tran Van Tra advised
U.S. officers with the Joint Military Commission that Captain
White had been omitted from the list and was to be repatriated.
He was released to U.S. officials on April 1, 1973, the last American
POW released during Operation Homecoming. Upon repatriation, he
stated he was led to believe during the war that Commander Graf
was still alive but had been told prior to his release that Commander
Graf had died.

Wartime records recovered from
the Vinh Binh area included the interrogation reports of Captain
White and Commander Graf. After Operation Homecoming, Commander
Graf was declared killed in action, body not recovered, based
on a presumptive finding of death.

U.S. investigators in Vietnam
recently interviewed former staff of the provincial prison who
described Commander Graf's escape. His body was recovered later
and it was evident he had drowned. His body was buried in a river
bank which later eroded in flooding, washing away the area where
his body had been buried.

The list of which this is one
entry furnishes the names of Vietnam War men and women Missing
in Action. Although he was reported later as having drowned after
his escape from prison, his remains had not been recovered when
this list was created.

This entry refers to Captain Robert
White and General Tran VanTra and the exchange of Captain White
on April 1, 1973. Refer again to Tran Van Tra's mention of "the
last POW" in the related
document in this module.